Sue Scheible: Take your time cleaning out a parent’s home

Wednesday

Jul 29, 2009 at 12:01 AMJul 29, 2009 at 7:10 AM

Experts are urging baby boomers to become familiar with their parents’ belongings long before they have to settle an estate and clean out the house. Here’s why you should be prepared, take your time and save the valuables.

Sue Scheible

Anne Biesemeyer Bailey describes cleaning out the family home, the Mountain House and what she learned about her parents' lives. Click center button to turn on and off.

It’s probably possible to clean out a parent’s home in 10 days or less, as one expert suggests. My advice: “Take your time.”

That way, you can say your goodbyes, make your peace and give more thought to what you toss and what you keep.

You might hold onto something you really would have missed if you had thrown it out. You may make the extra effort to donate clothing, furniture, china (or 20 bottles of 30-year-old whiskey) to a good cause.

Another resource is “Putting Things in Order” by Ellen Baumritter and David Finkle, a self-help journal to help boomers organize their lives for the next generation. Both decided to write the book when they experienced “the sad and confusing” task of sorting through their late parents’ estates.

I recently spent one final week sorting through more than 70 years of “stuff” in the apartment where my parents moved in 1983. They’d brought tons of things with them from our family home, and my late mother had carefully packed boxes and boxes full of items wrapped in newspaper. She passed away in 1990, and when my father died in March, it was all still there.

I kept coming across mementos – “common household objects” as Groucho Marx used to say on “You Bet Your Life” – that underscored what those early years were like, the friendships and the social scene.

About 25 square, white cards, with my parents’ wedding invitations from 1940, announced the reception at my aunt and uncle’s house. I’m using them to send notes and make lists.

A spool with small-gauge wire in my father’s old metal tool box. A paint brush, used and cleaned, the bristles soft and pliable. An old saw, double-edged and rusty. Each reminds me of how good he was at fixing things. My mother’s aprons, from the 1950s, copious notes on recipes, Toby mugs and nail brushes with wooden backs and stiff bristles.

I found my first inclination was not always the best. Three boxes were filled with a full set of Royal Doulton English bone china, each piece wrapped in yellowed newspaper. My parents had gone to Toronto in 1940 to select the china for their wedding, and my father had made sure in recent years I knew where the china set was packed away.

My impulse was to sell or donate it, until I unwrapped a few pieces. It is lovely, reminding me of my mother’s good taste, and is safe in my storage room.

One chore did have a deadline: cleaning out the assisted-living apartment where my father lived for his last eight months. I donated the maple bedroom furniture to the nonprofit church organization that runs the home. A new recliner went to the blind elderly woman who moved into his apartment. The dining room table, with two big leaves, was perfect for the staff’s weekly staff meetings.

And those 20 bottles of ancient whiskey? The activities director was delighted to get them for the residents’ monthly happy hours. One, a gift, says, “Made especially for Al Scheible.” They can open it and toast him.